


live fast, die young//have fun

by AquamarineSock



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: "Thank God We Lived" sex, Casefic That Turns Into Porn, Do Not Archive, Humiliation, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Undernegotiated Kink, Unsafe Sex, Watersports, Wetting, not canon compliant because timelines hate me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:21:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AquamarineSock/pseuds/AquamarineSock
Summary: Gerry had pissed himself. He’d got scared and pissed himself, like a, like a—“Fuck,” he breathed. Sure it was—natural, understandable, given the circumstances. But goddamnit. It was enraging to have your body get so frightened it pissed itself, without your conscious say so. (Also humiliating, but that only stoked the anger. How dare his body do this to him! How dare it make him feel this way!) This wasn’t the first time this had happened—not even the first time with an audience, no less!—but it was a betrayal each time. A maddening one.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 8
Kudos: 94





	live fast, die young//have fun

Gerry stood in the awning of the geology building, smoking, and ready to glare at any security guards that decided to tell him that this was a smoke free campus. Or that he shouldn’t be loitering. Whichever.

The air was thick and heavy with humidity. The puddles from the afternoon’s rain had evaporated, but the moisture hadn’t got much higher than the ground. It made the air feel like lukewarm soup. Gerry took idle note of it, in between drags of smoke. It wasn’t like you could shout ‘follow that weird cloud!’ and hone in on the supernatural that way—but weird shit rarely happened in unremarkable weather. Maybe confirmation bias, maybe real, who could honestly tell? And it didn’t really matter. Half of staying alive was following hunches and hoping your gut was mostly right.

And there was a fair chance something supernatural was going on. Gertrude had called him here on a favour. She did not ask for favours lightly. Which was a good trait, but meant that any favours she did ask for would be real _doozies_.

She’d got a statement about a possible Leitner. She was sending one of her assistants, Michael Shelley, to go follow-up—but “assistance from a subject matter expert was always helpful” or however she’d phrased it.

Hunting down a Leitner based on a second hand account of an already second hand account wasn’t his idea of a good night (or a good idea)— but the favour came with payment. Not enough for the aggravation, maybe, but it was open-market Leitner money. He couldn’t exactly turn that down.

And he didn’t want Michael getting shredded by whatever that book would be.

Michael gave a jaunty wave as he spotted Gerry, and made his way to awning he was sheltering under.

Gerry had met him a couple times before. Nice enough bloke. Bit of an archivist though. Not in the metaphysical sense—Gertrude had all the claim to that. But he seemed the sort of person who’d be much more comfortable sorting the marriage records from 1800s Yorkshire. The sort of person who would metamorphose in a decade or two, like some sort of academic butterfly, into someone who would unironically wear tweed. Not that he didn’t know his stuff—he certainly did. If you wanted to know if something was Stranger or Spiral from a one sentence description, or tell what a Leitner would do just from it’s cover, he could do that. But retrieving the Leitner—that was another matter.

One that Gerry thought would almost be easier done alone.

(He idly wondered if Michael had been sent as a “you don’t need to outrun the fear monster, you just need to outrun the friend you brought with you,” but Gertrude was hopefully not that callous, or as ‘wasteful of resource’. At least not over something like a ‘mere’ Leitner.)

Michael caught up with him.

“Ready?” Gerry asked, around the cigarette is his teeth.

“As I ever will be,” Michael offered with a somewhat strained smile.

Gerry dropped the cigarette and ground it out with his boot. “Better than nothing, I suppose. Do we actually have anything on this?”

“Mysterious, likely supernatural incidents, that coincided with when the Master theses got submitted.”

Gerry sighed. “A recent one, then?” Recent Leitners were pains. More so than the old ones.

“Well, it’s not like they ever got stopped being made, really—Well, you would know that, wouldn’t you?” He laughed nervously, as he caught himself. He cleared his throat, and tried again. “The statement giver couldn’t give us much more, as the disappearances and strange malfunctions came from the petrology group-- ‘the rock melters’” he said, giving air quotes, “Not ‘the petrol people’—and he’s a ‘structural guy,’” more air quotes “So doesn’t know the half of what they’re doing or what exactly went wrong.”

Gerry glared off into space, because something direct might make Michael crumble. “So, it might not even by supernatural.”

Michael shrugged, looking sheepish. “It probably is.”

He walked towards the door. “I like to be optimistic.”

The geology building had state of the art keycard readers—set next to doors made of safety glass. That is, amusingly easy to kick in.

The door shattered, and Gerry stepped inside, scanning the room.

The lights were on, and no alarms went off.

“Ill-advised late night experiments,” Michael offered as an explanation. “I mean, that was in the statement—”

Gerry cut off the impending nervous ramble. “Did the statement mention anything about where this Leitner might be?”

Michael turned and looked at one of the fire exit maps, like it might show something more useful than the fact the evacuation point was in the carpark. “The statement giver mentioned stairs, and fume hoods. So presumably, uh, in one of the upper floors, in a room with a fume hood?”

Gerry started climbing the stairs. “Process of elimination is something.”

“At least we avoid the basement,” he said, as he tore himself away from the map. “That looks like a right little maze—”

Gerry looked back at him, and Michael trailed off as he remembered they were trying to be stealthy.

The upper floor was dark, the only light coming from the street lights outside, but it was enough to see by. Just about.

It made the light spilling from under one of the doors even more harsh. They were leaving that one till last. Gerry was making sure of that. No point running into anyone you didn’t need to.

Michael pulled out a torch, the faint beam casting a circle on the linoleum floor. Gerry didn’t bother retrieving his. They didn’t do much, and they didn’t need them.

He stepped into the hall, in the direction of the dark doors.

A harsh buzz rang in his ears, high pitched, almost crackly. It set his teeth on edge and his shoulders around his ears. Could be something. Could be just what the building sounded like. Hard to tell.

They went through the unoccupied rooms, and systematically looked at everything written down on paper.

Finding an old Leitner—and ‘official’ one, as it were—wasn’t easy. But once you knew roughly where one was, you could do it systematically. Open the front cover, look for the plate. Treat all books with the glue marks of a plate that had fallen off with deep suspicion. Repeat till done.

But with the more recent ones, the one’s after that old bastard disappeared into the night, there was no such easy rule to follow. You kind of had to pick them up, and see if they felt weird (like a dread tome someone had made the mistake of printing as a paperback serial--). Maybe read a bit, if you were feeling bold, and hope that you didn’t pay for your foolishness.

So it involved picking up a lot of user manuals for complex scientific equipment with ‘x-ray’ or ‘electron’ in their name, or dry hardbacks with names like ‘The Lu-Hf Geochemistry of the Solomon Islands’ and just staring at them for a second.

With two trained hands it was efficient, but it was a maddening and haphazard process. Especially with the ticking clock of security finding the broken door.

Michael found a stack of Master theses, and rifled through them, face tense. “It’s not them,” he said quietly.

“Is that all of them?” It seemed like small stack, but it wasn’t like he knew how many master’s theses one put on a stack on a desk. He had his areas of expertise, and postgraduate study? Not one of them.

Michael shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s not the only one we’ve looked through.”

“So, we’ve gone through all of them.”

“Unless geology is very popular—which it might be, I really wouldn’t know for certain—near about.” His face turned into a flat, tense smile.

“Hmm.”

And they were eventually left with just the room with the light on. The high pitched buzz got louder as they stood in front of it, mixing with the electric hum of a toaster the size of a cow.

“Shall we--?” Michael whispered.

Technically, Michael should have been the one to make the call. It was the Archives that wanted this thing, for whatever statement verification you could do with a _Leitner_ , and Michael was the representative of the Archives. But he wasn’t a Leitner hunter. And he probably never had to tangle with anyone. Even if they were just a sleep deprived professor.

“How bad is this Leitner?”

“Well, they all are, and there a certainly worse ones, you’ve probably even seen them—” Michael cut himself off. “Could be worse. Shouldn’t be out in the world.”

Gerry opened the door. A weedy librarian type was pretty unthreatening, but him? He’d learned threatening. Learned the walk off an old corporal his mother had known, one who’d never stopped feeling that call of terror felt and inflicted at the hands of guns and bombs and battle cries. He went through first. Best option, really.

A figure stood in front of something—a square metal box, and a metre by a metre by a metre, electric coils glowing red around a mechanism and a small metal cylinder.

It took a second for his eyes to adjust, to make out the shape of the silhouette—

\--The figure stood with its finger in the metal cylinder, crushed by the weight of the pistons above and burned by the oven heat. It turned to face Gerry and Michael.

Its eyes glowed red, and a wave of furnace heat washed off it, hot and gaseous and certainly able to crisp you if you got to close.

Gerry took a step back, involuntarily, the pressure of heat half pushing him back and his fear doing the rest.

This was not a Leitner. He knew that, gut deep, looking at the figure. And he knew gut deep, there were no books in this room. No _Leitners_. 

A Leitner could have done this, turn whoever that was into what it was now—but not this time. This was the wrong shape, the wrong feeling.

A Leitner he could deal with. They were dangerous, but they were dangerous if you read them, or someone else did. But they were relatively—inanimate, otherwise. And ‘inanimate’ didn’t mean ‘ _safe_ ’, but he knew inanimate.

This was not a Leitner. This was an avatar. A baby one, probably—but still well above his pay grade.

They pulled their finger out from the tangle of pistons, the joints stretching further than they should before the finger popped free. They took a heavy step forward.

Gerry scrambled back, into Michael. “Don’t let him touch you!” It probably didn’t need to be said, but it would be bad for his rep to return to Gertrude with a badly burned archival assistant.

“Noted!” Michael ran, fully turning around and turning his back to the angry avatar.

 _Amateur._ Gerry kept going backwards, trying to get more distance between him and the avatar. If it was slow, they might even have a chance--

Its steps were heavy and purposeful, but not slow. Because the world was not kind to fools who stuck their noses out. It closed the distance faster than Gerry could get back.

Michael tossed a chair at it.

It hit it in the head. Not that hard, but it had enough momentum to startle it and knock it backwards.

Gerry rushed forwards, and stamped on its head until he heard something crack. If they were human, he’d just committed murder (and he would feel appropriately guilty about it when he wasn’t running for his life, thank you, he’ll even put it in his schedule if you insist). If they were an avatar, they were unconscious, and sure, they’d be able to get back up later, but right now it gave them a chance to run. (And he could equally easily pencil in some ‘worry about the avatar you just attacked’ time later.)

He sprinted off, and hoped Michael could run faster than this avatar could wake up. The tread of his boot stuck to the floor as he ran, half melted—more evidence that that was an avatar. He kept his screaming mostly internal—yay for practice.

Michael may not have been fit—it didn’t sound like it, from the sound of his breathing—but adrenaline was a hell of a drug. He kept up easily.

They ran down the stairs, through the broken glass door, and then past a whirl of buildings.

They clattered to a panting halt in an alleyway near the centre of the university. It was late enough that there were few people out. Most of the sound was distant traffic and the tinny music of late night food places and pubs.

Michael half collapsed against a skip, panting.

“You alright?” Because returning with a collapsed assistant would also be unideal.

Michael nodded, still breathing too harshly to form words.

Gerry felt a dampness in his pants.

It took him a second to work out what it was. It shouldn’t have taken that long, there were only so many things it could be—

He’d pissed himself. He’d got scared and pissed himself, like a, like a—

“ _Fuck,”_ he breathed. Sure it was—natural, _understandable_ , given the circumstances. But goddamnit. It was enraging to have your body get so frightened it pissed itself, without your conscious say so. (Also humiliating, but that only stoked the anger. How dare his body do this to him! How dare it make him feel this way!) This wasn’t the first time this had happened—not even the first time with an audience, no less!—but it was a betrayal each time. A maddening one.

And he some how hadn’t noticed at the time? Which somehow made it worse. Meant he was so scared he didn’t know what was happening to himself. Meant his body could leave him a nasty little surprise.

Michael looked up at him, concerned. “Are you alright?” The words were breathy, but intelligible. He said it like he thought that Gerry had sustained an injury, or something, before his eyes skidded over Gerry’s crotch. Black trousers hid a lot of sins, but they didn’t hide everything. “Ah.”

“It’s—fine,” he lied.

Michael nervously waved his hands about. “I mean—it is. It’s also not— It’s _understandable_. Happens to everybody.”

“Mh-HM,” he said, in an attempt to cut him off. The sooner they could get off this topic, the better.

Michael paused for a second. “I’ll—I’ll go get something to help,” and he sprinted off, which was t impressive considering the sprinting he had just done.

Gerry blinked, and wondered if he’d just fled into the night to avoid an awkward situation. Which was… tempting. (I mean, if Michael wasn’t there, he wouldn’t have to have anyone _see_ him--) But weird. Being able to deal with the monstrous extensions of entities beyond human comprehension but not human interactions, even the most awkward ones, was—well, actually, he knew a few people like that. Still odd.

Michael returned a few minutes later, running back bearing a can of coke and half a dispenser’s worth of napkins. He tossed the coke into the skip, and held out the napkins. “It’s not much, but it’s what I could rustle up at short notice. I can get more, if it would help.”

Gerry took them gingerly. “Thanks.” He didn’t ask for more. It was already a ludicrous amount of napkins.

Michael smiled sheepishly. “It’s the least I could do, really.” He gripped where his left thumb met his palm with his right thumb, digging the nail into the flesh.

Gerry didn’t comment. Weird habit, but you picked up weird habits in this line of work. He stepped around to the other side of the skip, to get at least a little privacy.

Michael spun on his heels, half to give the illusion of privacy and half to keep a watch out.

Gerry attempted to clean himself up. It… half worked. Took his trousers from ‘wet’ to ‘damp’, which was better than nothing, but wasn’t much either. And now his hands were dirty _. Damnit_.

He threw the napkins into the skip, and felt vaguely bad for whoever would be coming to empty it. They would likely be in a truck, and it wouldn’t even register—but still.

He walked back around the corner of the skip.

Michael had his phone out. “I can call a cab, I could probably get the Institute to expense it—”

He crossed his arms. “I refuse to sit down.”

“Right.” He looked cross-eyed down at the keypad, like it would show him the secrets of the universe and the best way to resolve this mess. “I—I live pretty close to here by bus. And my apartment has got a shower. And trousers that might fit you. Probably.” His free hand had moved back to digging into the fleshy bit of his palm.

Gerry still decided not to comment, unless he ended up actively bleeding or something. Weird habits, and the fact that plenty could deal with fear itself better than social interactions—there wasn’t any need to comment.

It was tempting to refuse, to just bloody walk across London until he got his house, and curl up in a hole of shame—but getting clean sooner rather than late was probably for the best. It held some appeal. A lot of appeal. “Sure.”

“I guess I’ll lead the way then,” Michael said, sidling off in what was presumably the direction of a bus stop.

The bus stop was quiet, thankfully. And the bus was prompt.

He paid his fare, stepped on, and grabbed one of the overhead rails. It was a Tuesday night, so most of the commuters were shift workers and not the Saturday night club crowd. Which would usually be a blessing-- but meant he couldn’t blend in smell of cheap beer and piss.

He stunk. He couldn’t tell how much was just because he was right next to himself—but he smelled like he’d just pissed himself. Which was true, unfortunately.

He felt eyes tickle the back of his neck. Normally he’d turn around, give back as good as he got—but not now. If it was because he was dressed in as much black and metal as one person could wear, while standing next a librarian, he could do it. But when it could have been because he was covered in piss. …yeah, not gonna happen. He stood, half hunched, unable to summon to courage to stand straighter.

There was a chance the eyes on him were a trick of perception, or just because of what he looked like—but with his luck? And the shape of the world? It was possible. But he wouldn’t bet on it.

Michael sat in one of the seats next to him, cross legged and still worrying at his palm. “So, follow any sports?” he asked, attempting to make conversation. He laughed nervously, and Gerry couldn’t tell whether it was because of the small talk or something else.

Gerry—appreciated the attempt at distraction, even if the execution was less than ideal. “…no.” His knowledge of sports started and ended with ‘cricket takes a long time to play, and I have no idea why people bother’ and ‘rugby players look like someone attached jet engines to fridges, and then turned them into people.’ It very rarely came up in more detail, in his life. (He was in theory a rare book salesman.)

“Oh good, I don’t either.”

Gerry laughed despite himself. “Then why did you bring it up?”

“I was trying to make small talk!” He pressed a hand into his cheek. “Our jobs don’t really lend to much light conversation.”

“You have to have— _mundane_ problems in the Institute. Someone has to be taking loud personal calls, or the coffee is terrible—”

“Or they stop the Friday afternoon baked goods, _the fiends_ ,” he said, with fake vehemence.

“ _No_ ,” Gerry said back, with equal drama.

“Not that it affects me much. Research always got there first, and you wouldn’t think they could eat fast enough that there’d be none left by the time you climbed those stairs out of the basement, but no, no, you’d be wrong. But to hear Research complaining about the stoppage—” he sighed —you’d think they didn’t know that you can buy your own donuts--”

And okay, he wouldn’t have picked it, but a slightly manic monologue about the office politics of a Beholding cult was pleasantly distracting.

After ten minutes, the monologue clattered to a halt as Michael stood up, and pressed the call button inset in one of the bus pillars. “That’s our stop.” He flashed a nervous smile. “Told you it was quick.”

Gerry .

It was a short walk to Michael’s apartment building—a blocky grey chunk of concrete thing, looked like it was made by an architect that didn’t go all the way and commit to brutalism, and ended up making a rectangle with balconies.

The reception was unmanned thankfully—less people to see his shame. And the elevators were efficient, if alarmingly clunky.

Michael’s apartment was small. Not ridicukously smalll—but definitely sized for one person, and one person only. The hallway running down one side was too small for bookshelves, which hadn’t stopped Michael from storing books. He’d arranged them in piles along the floor, with the heaviest hardbacks on the bottom and light books in the upper layers. His books were in a gradient between intimidating psychology and library science textbooks up to 1990s fantasy paperbacks with griffons on the cover. Second hand fare, from students or charity shops.

“Bathroom’s just over there,” Michael said, gesturing to one of the doors in the tiny entry corridor. “I’ll go see if I can, uh, rustle up some trousers.”

“Right.” Gerry stepped through the bathroom door. The bathroom was also a combined laundry, with a washing machine and dryer stacked up on top of each other, and an awkwardly placed clothes horse in front of the shower. He waited by the door. Diving straight into the shower with his clothes still on was tempting. But it would be easier to wait and grab the possible trousers instead of having them thrown through the door for him. Even if it involved standing around awkwardly in someone else’s bathroom, wondering how they even got to the shower without getting tangled in the clothes horse.

Michael returned a few minutes later, somehow even more red faced and flustered before, holding out a pair of grey trackpants.

He took the trousers, and was ready to just ignore Michael’s nervousness, when he made the mistake of looking down.

Tonight seemed to be the night for making awkward discoveries by looking at people’s crotches.

Michael had attempted hide his erection with his belt. And his attempt was valiant. His execution, less so.

Gerry barked out a laugh. He’d assumed Michael’s awkwardness was because of the situation, or because he was an inherently awkward person—and sure, the awkwardness was because of ‘the situation,’ but—well, it was a different kind of awkwardness.

Michael made a very good guess at the cause of laughter, and flushed an even brighter red, waving his hands in a flustered gesture of appeasement. “Ah, I’m so sorry. I apologise, that’s probably—not something you want to see? Not something you want people to be seeing you through the lens—I’m very, very sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he said. Because it was. He couldn’t mind someone getting _something_ positive out of this situation, something that made tonight not a complete wash. (And like, the concept of getting through a situation by the skin of your teeth and then ending up climbing the walls wasn’t foreign to him.)

Being told it was fine did not do anything to stop the apology train, which became more frantic and less coherent.

Gerry put a hand on his shoulder, in derailing the train. “It’s fine. Really. I can’t be unhappy about you getting something good out of this situation Someone may as well. --Someone nice,” he clarified. (He left the ‘something nice’ unstated. The chances that something Out There was getting a kick out of this was too high) “I wouldn’t even mind you doing something about it. –which I should clarify,” because Michael was the sort of person who would need it clarified, “Is definitely a come on.”

He could practically hear the gears whirring in Michael’s head. “You—wouldn’t mind?”

“More than wouldn’t mind.” He resisted the impulse to nervously scratch the back of his neck—he was trying to flirt, and he was _going_ to succeed, and he wasn’t going to make a fool of himself again tonight. “It’s been a shitty night, and I’d be more than happy to make it not shitty. At least for one of us. But I think we could do it for both of us.”

Michael backed him up against the bathroom wall—It wasn’t a lot of distance to cover, but Gerry was impressed by the initiative—and leaned down to kiss him. He kissed him rough and hard, like he was barrelling into this full tilt to stop himself from backing out, like if he didn’t take the opportunity it would stop being real and run out of his fingers like sand.

Gerry grabbed him around the shoulders and kissed him back with as much force. He was no stranger to that feeling—and if Michael need effort, energy, forward momentum, to actually commit, he could help with that. _Easily_.

Michael slid a hand between them, groping Gerry’s crotch. It was clumsy, more like he was playing with the wetness there than anything directed—but eenh, pressure was pressure. Especially when it was coming from someone pretty and enthusiastic.

His cock hardened in response, slow but inevitable.

Gerry fought to undo the buckle of his belt, because less clothes would help.

Michael stopped suddenly.

Gerry was about to say something, ask what that was about, when Michael whipped a towel off the rack and half lead, half dragged him over to the couch.

He placed the towel on the couch, and then Gerry on top of it.

Gerry went with it. Couches were softer than tile walls. This was a good thing.

He knelt down between Gerry’s legs, and continued the fight with the belt buckle and the zips, goddamnit why did he chose to wear trousers with so many zips today? (Because he hadn’t predicted this. And why would he have predicted this?)

It was—a sight. Michael on his knees for him, even when he was like _this_. His expression of intense concentration and determination, like he was going to make the most of this, and any cowardly or embarrassed parts of him were just going to have to get in line, mixed with a deepening flush of arousal. And Michael certainly wasn’t _bad_ looking, by any means, unless you were only into bears or something—but anyone who wanted their mouth on your cock that badly looked stunning.

Gerry helped as much as he could with Operation Get These Trousers At Least Mostly Off, though his best efforts were probably not that good. He was pretty distracted, in his defence. (They both were, but still, Michael was somehow having more luck with his trousers than he was.)

But the trousers and underwear were eventually cast off, into the corner next to the tv.

Gerry’s dick was harder than he expected, and definitely responded well to the hand stroking over it, and the hot breath from Michael so close to it.

“Should we get a condom?” he asked, because that would be a good idea.

“We could—” Michael said. He looked up at him, made eye contact, blue eyes blown and shining. “But I want to taste –you.” A slight pause, and Gerry wasn’t sure if he wanted to taste his skin or his piss. Both, most likely.

And—look, this was not a smart thing that he was about to say. It was risky. And it wasn’t the sort of bad idea that had it’s name in flashing red lights, it still was a _bad idea_.

But it wasn’t the worst one, and he’d done riskier things tonight—i.e picking a fight with a _Desolation avatar_. “Sure,” he said.

Michael put his mouth on the head of Gerry’s cock—and groaned. It was deep and guttural, resonating through him, and definitely not performative, unless Michael was a really good actor.

“Wow,” Gerry said, because what else did you say in response to that? (Especially ‘cause he didn’t actually know what Michael got out of this, and any attempts at more elaborate dirty talk risked being mood killing.)

Michael’s mouth was hot and wet, sliding across his foreskin smoothly, right hand stroking in rhythm and acting as a backstop.

Gerry put a hand on Michael’s head, not holding him down—but holding him. Playing with his hair. It was soft and springy and silky under his touch. It was a pleasant distraction. Which he really needed if he wasn’t going to come like two minutes in like a horny mess. In theory he should be grossed out—Michael was sucking his cock as an indirect way to drink his _piss_ —but he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. How could you manage disgust in response to this?

Michael went at his task with enthusiasm, and arguably too much tongue, but the enthusiasm more than made up for it.

Heat coiled in Gerry’s gut, lit up along his spine. (Distractions could only go so far. Even if Michael’s hair was very pettable.)

This should be disgusting. He should be disgusted. But the enthusiasm turned it into a sacrament. Excitement and the act of turning something so base into something so joyous—And like, a fair amount of ‘thank fuck we lived, let’s celebrate.’ That was important to.

Michael squirmed as he sucked and licked, disorganised and distracted but loving every second.

“You can—huh—” he exhaled sharply, trying to still his hips and stop his fingers from tightening, “You can touch yourself. If you want to.” Because it seemed rude not to specify. Michael seemed the sort who’d want permission. (And Michael seemed so close just from sucking him off –again, _Wow_ – that it seemed doubly rude not to let him.)

Michael fought the button of his trousers with his free hand, surprisingly successful despite his distraction. He was _good_ at multi-tasking. His breath hitched as he touched himself, and his enthusiasm redoubled, if not his coordination.

Gerry ruffled his hair, to give his hand something to do. “Yeah, that’s good. So good.” He was holding on by a thread, even if he couldn’t work out why he should keep holding on, why he should care about appearances when someone was licking the piss off his cock. “I’m—close.” Because yeah, really should warn people about that.

Michael didn’t change his behaviour. Gerry wondered if he hadn’t heard him. Or couldn’t understand English right now.

But then he sucked deeper, taking away his backstop hand and trying to fit as much of Gerry as possible into his mouth.

 _“Wow,”_ he breathed, because that was definitely the right response, and came hard, legs shaking and hips arching against his will.

They locked eyes. Michael stared up at him, hot and hungry and eyes sparkling with delight and arousal and something that was shaped almost like triumph, but not a triumph over him, but a triumph with him. Gerry had no idea what he looked like. Presumably not alarming, considering how Michael looked at him. But.

Michael pulled off at the end of the aftershocks, and coughed politely into his elbow.

“Would you like help?” Gerry leaned forward, nearly doubling over, his hand hovering over Michael’s cock.

“If you’re—” Michael said, voice scratchy and blown out, before just nodding.

It was an awkward position to hold, hard to breathe in, but he needn’t have worried about holding it too long. He stroked Michael from root to tip, once, twice, before he came, spilling over his hand with a sharp exhalation.

“Thank you,” Michael breathed.

Gerry levered himself upright. “My pleasure,” he said, half sarcastically.

“Hah.” He caught his breath. “Shower?” He was still slightly too fucked out and dazed to go into his usual wall of polite words.

Gerry waved a hand in the direction of the bathroom. “You first.”

“No, really, I insist—” Michael said, his sheepish politeness reasserting itself.

“I’m comfortable.” Which was true. Also, if he tried to stand up right now, there was a good chance he would just face plant onto the floor. Endorphin highs and adrenaline comedowns, all at once: Such Fun.

It seemed pointless to shower separately after what just happened, but that was how it worked out. Anyway, that shower would not have fit two people anyway, and Gerry did not want anyone to see him lose a fight with a clothes horse.

After Michael left the shower, Gerry walked in, and tossed his dirty clothes into the washing machine. Because that was why he was here in the first place, and why not? Even if he left without collecting them, Michael would probably be willing to give them back when they next ran into each other. Or post them, if it came to that. Or just give them up. He could live without ‘em.

He walked out of the bathroom to find Michael on the couch, staring at the copyright page of _The Silver Sword Trilogy #2: The Sword of Stability._

“I should probably—head home.”

Michael dropped the book, slightly flustered. “You can – it’s not like I could stop you, of course—but I can take the couch, if you want. Or—the bed is fairly big. We could both fit and still have – room. If you want.”

Gerry paused. He’d dived head first into a lot of things tonight. Some better ideas, some worse. And this was the least risky of them. Emotionally at least. No reason not to take it. Especially if it meant he was warm and comfortable.

He could just head home. Sleep in his own bed. Lick his wounds in peace.

Or he could stay. He was not close enough to Michael that sharing a bed would be comfortable—but an extra pair of eyes was always something. As was a sentient heater. And he didn’t have to find his way home. (Or find out how to retrieve his clothes.) He smiled. “Sure.”


End file.
